Harvesting healthier futures for the farming community
“Farmers told us they often put work ahead of their own health. Your voices are now helping to change this.”
At a glance: What this work is achieving for North Yorkshire’s farming community
Farmers across North Yorkshire told us they face real challenges looking after their physical and mental health, from long working hours and isolation to services that don’t fit around farming life. Their experiences, echoed recently in BBC News coverage, have driven significant action across the county.
Thanks to farmers’ feedback, health and care partners are:
- trialling farmers’ walk-in clinics and bringing health checks into auction marts
- launching new local care initiatives, including social prescriber visits and GP-led checks
- developing mental health training for vets and rural professionals
- improving GP awareness of the barriers farmers face
- shaping national conversations, including Parliamentary questions and panels at the Great Yorkshire Show
- embedding farming needs in the Rural Health Needs Assessment and suicide prevention planning
- exploring new partnerships to place nurses in auction marts and strengthen on-site support
This work is already improving how services understand and respond to the farming community. It marks an important shift towards care that recognises the realities of farming life.
Read our report: Ploughing through farming and healthcare barriers
Our report looked at the barriers facing the farming community to understand how to improve understanding and promote better help-seeking.
Discover the full findings that shaped the improvements and impact described here:
Recently, a BBC News article highlighted the mental health pressures facing farmers in North Yorkshire. Many of the experiences shared echoed what farmers told us through our Ploughing through barriers report, including long working hours, isolation, lack of time off and uncertainty about where to go for support. Veterinary surgeon and TV personality Julian Norton (The Yorkshire Vet) spoke openly about the loneliness farmers can experience, reinforcing how important this work already is for our county.
Farming is at the heart of North Yorkshire. It shapes the countryside, puts food on tables and supports the rural economy. But many farmers face daily pressures that affect both their physical and mental health.
Putting farmers' voices at the centre of change
Farmers told us that health services do not always fit around farming life. Taking time off for an appointment can feel unrealistic, and concern about being judged for speaking about mental health is still common.
These issues were reinforced in the BBC News coverage, which highlighted similar pressures faced across the county.
By sharing your stories, you have ensured these challenges are now firmly on the agenda. Health and care leaders are taking notice and making changes based on what you told us.
Where your feedback makes a difference
Below is how your experiences are already shaping improvements across the county.
Farmers’ walk-in clinics at GP practices
Plans are in place to trial dedicated walk-in sessions designed around farmers’ schedules within the North Riding Primary Care Network (Hambleton North & South and Leyburn Medical Practice). A “farmer’s walk-in clinic” is a session where no prior appointment is required and anyone from the farming community can attend for a health check. These ones will run between November 2025 and January 2026 when farmer workloads ease slightly.
This work began after we published Ploughing through barriers, which explored farmers’ challenges in detail.
“I can’t always take time off. Bringing services to us or at a time in our calendar that is more suitable makes a huge difference.”
Local care in Selby, on the East Coast and beyond
Healthwatch presentations have prompted action within NHS and council teams.
The Living Well team in Selby trialed offering health checks at an auction mart and identified high blood pressure in a farmer, helping himto get the urgent follow-up care he needed.
Other local care partnerships are now exploring initiatives such as walk-in farmer clinics, health checks run by local GP practices at auction marts, and dedicated social prescriber visits.
A social prescriber is someone who supports people with non-medical needs, helping them access community-based services, wellbeing support, advice and activities that improve their health.
A care partnership is when NHS staff, councils and community groups work together locally. The idea is to stop services working on their own and instead make them more joined up so they can tap into each other’s strengths and resources and avoid duplication.
Local GP practice responds to farming feedback
Read how Central Dales GP Practice used views and experiences from local farmers to tailor services and improve access
Healthcare at auction marts
Auction marts are central to farming life. By trialling health checks run by GP practices and support services at Selby auction mart, shaped by the Healthwatch report and inspired by the work of the Field Nurse charity, healthcare is brought to where farmers already are.
North Riding Primary Care Network, a group of GP practices working together, has also launched a Rural Health Team. Working with the Farming Community Network, they visited Malton auction mart for the first time in October 2025 to deliver health checks. They are holding two more drop-in sessions in November 2025 and going back again in December 2025.
Their long-term goal is to build up a regular presence and work together with other agricultural organisations to improve access to primary care within the farming community; they have already received an enquiry from an agricultural company in Malton.
Auction marts aren’t just about selling livestock. They’re places where farmers meet professionally and socially. That makes them a natural place to offer health checks and advice without farmers losing valuable working hours.
Building on this momentum, we are also working with Doctor Johnny Ferguson (Lead for Health Inequalities at South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust) to explore placing nursing posts within auction marts. The Friarage Hospital has agreed in principle to host these roles, and funding and sponsorship are being sought from the National Farmers’ Union, the Country Land and Business Association and agricultural feed companies. We will come together on 1 December 2025 to progress these plans.
Bringing health checks to the auction ring
Read how we’re taking care directly to farmers by delivering health checks at the auction mart:
Supporting mental health
Veterinarians and other rural professionals work closely with farming families and often visit during stressful periods. Because of this, they are well placed to notice early changes in behaviour, mood or wellbeing. We are supporting plans to train these professionals to recognise signs and symptoms of mental health concerns and to feel confident starting supportive conversations.
This initiative is being developed with the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution (also known as RABI) which provides specialist mental health support for the farming community. The aim is to give trusted professionals the knowledge to signpost farmers to help at the earliest opportunity, reducing the risk of issues worsening unnoticed.
Training general practices to improve
Healthwatch is working with RABI to offer training sessions for GP practices. The plan is to raise awareness of the barriers to accessing care that farmers face, to highlight what GP practices can do to help break down these barriers and to showcase RABI, a key support organisation that GP practices can signpost patients to. The Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution is a farming charity that provides financial help, emotional support and practical guidance to farmers and their families.
We have attended one GP protected learning time session in Selby Vale and will be part of the Scarborough, Hambleton and Richmondshire sessions this year to support practice staff education around farming.
Raising awareness where it matters
Your feedback has not only shaped local services but also caught the attention of national decision-makers.
Reaching out to visitors at the Great Yorkshire Show
The Great Yorkshire Show is the Yorkshire Agricultural Society’s flagship four-day event, attracting around 140,000 visitors in 2025. Healthwatch took part in a panel discussion that put farmer wellbeing centre stage.
The session opened honest conversations about mental health, access to care, and the pressures of farming life. By speaking directly with farmers, families and healthcare staff in this unique setting, we reached people where they live and work.
“The show helped break down stigma and build understanding across the rural community.”
Farmers being heard by the Government
Julian Smith, Member of Parliament for Skipton and Ripon, asked government ministers three formal questions about farming health:
- bringing mobile health services into rural areas
- making general practice appointments more flexible for farmers
- training rural professionals, such as vets, to signpost support
When a Member of Parliament asks a question in Parliament, it means a government minister must respond publicly. This helped push farming health higher up the national agenda.
Ministers recognised the challenges farmers face and pointed to existing schemes, including the Farmer Welfare Grant and mental health training for agricultural communities.
Volunteer action leads to parliamentary response
Read how Healthwatch volunteer insight triggered formal questions in Parliament:
With the Yorkshire Agricultural Society
The Society has taken the Healthwatch report into its Rural Support Network steering group, using it both to set priorities and to strengthen funding bids for frontline services. This means Healthwatch evidence is not just informing plans but unlocking the resources needed to deliver change on the ground.
With North Yorkshire Council
The experiences of farmers, alongside Healthwatch recommendations, are shaping something called the Rural Health Needs Assessment, which identifies the specific health, wellbeing, and social support needs of communities in rural areas of the county. The result is that farmers’ voices are influencing long-term planning for rural services, ensuring that issues such as access, isolation, and tailored GP support are built into plans - not left to chance.
Healthwatch also presented findings at the North Yorkshire Scrutiny of Health Committee (Health and Wellbeing Board) about farmers’ health to councillors, who acknowledged the seriousness of the challenges farmers face and gave their backing to continued action to break down barriers to healthcare in rural communities. Their support means farmer wellbeing is now firmly on the council’s agenda, creating opportunities to influence how healthcare services are planned, funded and run.
Speaking up for farmers
Healthwatch shared the Ploughing through barriers report at discussion and planning groups across North Yorkshire, ensuring farming communities stay at the forefront of rural healthcare planning.
This has helped:
North Yorkshire Council’s suicide prevention group
Your input has helped bring the unique challenges of isolation and farming life into a countywide suicide prevention plan. This ensures that rural mental health is not treated as an afterthought but embedded wider plans. It also opens doors to training opportunities (such as protected learning time sessions for doctors) so frontline staff can better recognise and respond to farmers’ needs.
Rural Services Network’s national seminar
Sharing North Yorkshire’s learning on a national stage means shaping the rural health conversation and helping reach more people in England. Attendees at the event included rural health leaders and those making decisions about your health, giving your recommendations a platform to improve healthcare across other farming locations, such as Derbyshire.
Rural cancer awareness
We are part of the Humber and North Yorkshire Rural Cancer Working Group, which focuses on cancer awareness, screening, diagnosis and treatment in rural areas.
Ideas under discussion include:
- introducing cancer champions into auction marts
- training vets and rural professionals on cancer awareness, similar to our mental health training
There is potential funding within the Humber and North Yorkshire Cancer Alliance to pilot some of these ideas.
What happens next
This is only the beginning. Farmers have spoken up and services are beginning to change, but more needs to be done. Over the next year we will:
- push for more flexible healthcare options such as walk-in clinics and on-site health checks at places where farmers already are, including auction marts and young farmers’ events
- continue working with North Yorkshire Council and health leaders so rural voices remain part of every major plan
- ensure farming families are included in mental health and suicide prevention work
- keep sharing what North Yorkshire farmers are saying at a national level so change reaches beyond our county
Alongside this, we are building stronger partnerships to help deliver the next phase of work. This includes exploring:
- Getting nurses into auction marts – the Friarage Hospital has agreed in principle to host these posts. We are now seeking funding and sponsorship from the National Farmers’ Union, the Country Land and Business Association, and agricultural feed companies.
- Training vets and other rural professionals to recognise signs and symptoms of mental health issues, with support from the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution.
A meeting on 1 December 2025 will bring organisations together to move this work forward.
"When those in charge of care and support listen, get creativive and act, it makes a huge difference."
